Believe it or not, there was once a time when Jaden Smith was being pegged to follow in his famous father’s footsteps and become a successful actor in his own right, instead of gaining a bizarre cult status as one of the internet’s favorite pseudo-philosophers and the subject of countless memes.
To be fair, his acting career got off to an impressive start after the youngster received rave reviews for his work alongside Will in The Pursuit of Happyness at the age of just eight years old, while four years later he played the lead role in The Karate Kid remake. Jackie Chan may have been the main selling point of the project, but Smith gave a good account of himself as Dre Parker in the surprisingly popular update that raked in over $350 million at the box office.
Things went completely off the rails, however, following After Earth, M. Night Shyamalan’s terrible sci-fi blockbuster that was self-indulgent nepotism at its very worst. Still, it appears as if Smith remains interested in big screen projects as we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones that told us a Green Lantern show is in the works for HBO Max – that the 22 year-old is keen on headlining the Static Shock movie to be produced by Michael B. Jordan.
Of course, Smith was linked to the role several years ago when it was first being touted, and while it hasn’t been made clear if Warner Bros. even want him for the titular character or if he’s just gauging the studio’s interest in holding talks, casting him as Static Shock would certainly get people talking, even if it would no doubt prove to be a very divisive choice given his relative inactivity on the big screen for the last few years.
